This thread is meant to showcase your favorite recipes - of any kind. We have other threads that show how to cook with THC, but let’s post our recipes for any dish that we crave. I know many of you are great cooks, and maybe a few of you are actually chefs, so share your faves, and maybe a few secrets, too.
I’ll start.
Years ago, I was with friends at a brewery restaurant. We ordered pork belly and a bunch of other things. I was blown away by the flavor and texture of the pork belly and became obsessed with figuring out how they made it. I deduced they must have used a sous vide method, and eventually shared emails with the chef who filled me in on (most of) the rest.
Recipe:
Dry Cure a 5 pound pork belly:
100 grams kosher salt
7.5 grams saltpeter or 10 grams of pink salt
30 grams packed brown sugar
2 tablespoons whole black peppercorns
2 tablespoons whole yellow mustard seeds
2 tablespoons whole coriander seeds
1 tablespoon allspice berries
1 tablespoon juniper berries
6 whole cloves
1 tablespoon ground ginger
6 bay leaves, roughly torn
Combine salt, saltpeter (or pink salt), and brown sugar in a small bowl and whisk until evenly mixed. Rub evenly over entire surface. Combine peppercorns, mustard, coriander, allspice, cloves, ginger, and bay leaves and sprinkle evenly over both sides, pressing spices gently into the meat until they stick. Seal the pork belly in a vacuum sealed bag or a ziplock bag with all of the air pressed out of it. Place in bottom shelf of your refrigerator and let rest for 4 to 7 days, flipping once a day.
After curing the pork belly, rinse it off and pat it dry. Then reseal it in a vacuum bag or ziplock bag with ALL AIR REMOVED. Place in a sous vide bath set for 74C/165F and let it slowly cook for 24 hours.
Remove the cooked pork belly from the sous vide bath and place on the bottom shelf of your refrigerator with a cookie sheet on top and about 10 pounds of weight on top of it for 24 hours. You’re trying to get the pork belly slab to an even thickness.
After 24 hours in the fridge, now it’s time to deep fry your pork belly! Yup - get a small pot and fill it with oil to a depth of about 1/2 to 1 inch deeper than the pork belly is thick. Heat the oil to 350F. While waiting for the oil to heat up, pull the pork belly out of the bag. Wipe off the jelly/fat and cut into 2 inch x 2 inch squares or a little larger. Fry the pieces you plan to eat and refrigerate the rest.
Fry for 4 to 5 minutes. You want a crisp outer layer, but don’t overdo it. As soon as you pull the pork belly out of the oil, hit it with a glaze to prevent it from over drying or getting stringy.
Glaze recipe:
Equal parts honey, water, brown sugar. Bring to boil, then add a rosemary twig to steep. Glaze should be like a thin syrup.
That’s it! I like to serve it without much else because it’s so rich and delicious. However, I do like it served with halved Brussels sprouts cooked in bacon grease.
